Fire Gate
by Gunney
Summary: Response to challenge at Heliopolis. The crew of Serenity mistakenly pick up a Stargate and SG-1. Please review!
1. The Gift of the Gate

Fire Gate

Chapter One

"It's neither a question of 'if' or 'when'."

"Yeah?"

"Never." Inara stopped in her tracks and the final clang of her boots on the catwalk echoed with the single word through the near empty cargo hold.

Mal choked a bit and stutter-stepped to avoid plowing her over. They had been going at a fair clip. "Ne-Never?"

"Not ever. I am a Companion, not your mascot and not about to parade as some…what?"

"You wouldn't be paradin' just…" Mal circled his hands in the air as though by sheer effort he could grasp a better word for the part he had already been planning for Inara to play.

Inara waited, her arms folded elegantly and yet angrily, underneath her increasingly attractive…blouse. One thin eyebrow rose, her lips parted in disgust. Yet no matter how annoyed Mal knew her to be, he also knew that every move was carefully rehearsed, orchestrated and represented. She'd be perfect! If only she'd agree…

"I have my own duties when planet side." She reminded him only a little less fierce in tone than she had been a moment ago.

"But…"

Inara shook her head as she spun on a heel and marched the rest of the way to her shuttle, Mal sputtering in pursuit.

Half a story below Jayne heaved into the vast cargo hold dragging one end of a heavy duty chain and the empty shipping crate attached to it. Metal screeched against metal as he grunted and cursed and strained and grappled his way to the parked, and ultimately useless Mule. The machine hadn't worked since they had last picked up cargo and part of their next buying excursion would involve repairing it.

Jayne blamed Simon. It was easier that way.

"It ain't his fault, Jayne." Kaylee called from the storage hatch Jayne had just vacated. Jayne responded with more grunts and expletives.

"Ever since he came on board things been blowin' up and goin' wrong." He grunted.

As Kaylee left the the storage compartment with a much smaller container Jayne stalked past her in the other direction, disappearing back into the storage hatch. She smiled good naturedly, carrying her crate to the dead mule.

"No more than they do usual and you know it." She chided, setting the box as securely as possible amongst others of it's size. "Side's other than the mule bein' whacked and the engine runnin' slow we got away good with the last one."

"Good?" Jayne jutted his head from the hatch then ducked back in to get a good grip on a large, octagonal shaped crate. "Huh… Good is beatin' a bounty hunter out of his bounty and his reward and zippin' off clean. What _we_ got was shot at, zapped by funny lookin' guns and near run over cause the Doc _had _to figure out that…thing.." With a thud Jayne dropped the hexagonal crate into place atop the other of its kind and pointed at the long, heavy crate he had previously dragged to the mule.

It was long enough for a mid-size person to lie on it without his head or his feet sticking out. But there was no way it could be comfortable. It was big enough that a person might fit in side…if they could figure out how to open it.

Kaylee pondered the gold colored, rectangular crate for a moment. Her head cocked to one side. Simon hadn't been able to make heads or tails of it, even after insisting that it was worthy of being stolen, and had finally decided that the zap it had taken from the weird guns was what broke it. Even Kaylee had to admit that it was entirely worthless now. But at the time it had seemed to be a miracle machine.

"Well…" She said thoughtfully, shrugging her shoulders. "Maybe we can trade it for somethin'." With a sigh and another shrug she headed back for the storage hatch, glancing up when the stomp of boots on the catwalk filled the hold once more. She could tell by the pace and the volume that it was Mal, and that he probably hadn't convinced Inara to pretend to be a god after all.

"Wash. How much time til planetside?" Mal demanded storming down the passages of Serenity, destined for the bridge.

"We rehearsed and ready to go, then?" Wash responded, his voice disembodied as he used the ship's comm to answer. When the Captain didn't respond right off Wash winced and sucked some air through clenched teeth. "Wrong question to ask." He muttered quietly.

A sidelong glance across the expanse of the bridge told him his wife, Zoe, had heard him. When Mal stormed onto the bridge both of them wiped the grins away for the time being.

Zoe, tall, lean and radiant, even in uniform, straightened to a facsimile of 'at attention' and pointed to the looming planet off the port bow. "Nearly there, sir. Shouldn't be too long."

"Inara not interested in diety-hood, Mal?" Wash asked, the question a little too perky for Captain Reynold's taste.

"Goddess and prostitute…she could be Aphrodite…." River's voice floated toward them from below the helm and all three leaned over the console to peer down at the girl lounging in the cavity that existed between the bulkhead and the forward window.

"Wasn't askin' her to do miracles. Just put on a flare or two. Impress the yokels." Mal grunted watching the planet grow before them, his back stiff with irritation. "Don't know how many planets we tried to dump that crate on…"

"Couldn't have anything to do with it not working…" Zoe shrugged, careful to keep her eyes on the planet, her lips in a tight line.

"We don't know that. We _can't _know that. We don't know what the thing is…or what it does." Mal snapped.

"It heals." Called River, in defense of her brother.

"Not hardly." Mal muttered. "Call out when we set down, then get to the cargo hold. It'll take us all to unload the mule."

Zoe bent to kiss Wash as Mal left the bridge, her hand trailing across his chest and over his shoulder before she followed the captain's brisk gait, leaving nothing but the taste of her lips on her husband's smiling face behind.

From space the planet was blue and green and orange and purple, dependent on the pole and the weather conditions. It was the seventh out of twelve trading colonies that the crew of Serenity hoped to unload their useless cargo on. And like the past seven planets, and the future four, each landing was greeted by a flood of attention and excitement. For trading planets they apparently didn't see much in the way of Serenity's class of vessel.

This particular planet, the name of which Mal refused to care enough to get, was no different. They spent time enough to learn that other than a couple hundred acres of farm land, the odd city, clay pools and marshes there wasn't much in the way of terrain. However the locals seemed eager to take as much of Serenity's unwanted cargo as they could. They offered fresh produce, something that none of Mal's crew would willingly turn down, hand woven textiles and herbal remedies to local diseases.

For two solar days Inara disappeared into the towering city with her shuttle and her mysterious clients and Mal did his best to drink as much as was offered and forget the rest.

Perhaps it was the drink. Perhaps it was the strange paste that they smeared around the lip of the glasses before each beverage was served. Maybe it was the euphoria of getting rid of the unsightly, coffin-like crate once and for all. Mal, Jayne and Wash would work it out later, long after the incident had faded into memory. But by the time Serenity lifted off the planet and settled into orbit the cargo hold was as full as it had ever been.

Crates, baskets and pallets made from all manner of woven or baked materials crowded every corner, stacked to the gills with vegetation, jars of unlabeled liquids and treated wood (the locals couldn't understand how Serenity could stay warm in space without firewood.). In the very middle of the mess, propped up at an 89 degree angle and easily stretching from floor to ceiling was a giant, engraved, metal ring.

Inara was the first to realize it was there. Spending the night in her docked shuttle she woke early to see what the others had managed to trade for. Just out side the access hatch to the small pod that she called home, Kaylee (it had to have been her, no one else was sweet enough) had carefully stacked a small pile of boxes. From their size and shape Inara guessed they were mostly clothing items, or small fruits or decorative things for the shuttle. Kaylee always seemed to enjoy buying the daintier things that Inara used as much as the greasy engine parts that the mechanic needed to keep the ship running and the captain happy.

Inara was still smiling at the kind gesture when something in the cargo hold clanged, snapped and exploded. She whipped her head up in time to watch a pool of water explode side ways in a massive, bulbous wave from the middle of the giant ring in the center of the hold. The wave vaporized every stacked crate in it's path and took a crescent shaped bite out of the edge of the catwalk before it settled back into a vertical pool that filled the inner circle of the ring and somehow…despite all the rules of the universe she thought she knew…neither spilled over the floor, nor drained away.

For a long moment she and the metal ring seemed at a stand off, staring one at the other in open mouthed shock. The pool of water almost seemed serene, despite the devastation it had wreaked on the other cargo. The water reflected luminescent, easily brighter than the lights in the cargo hold. Recovering, Inara took a dozen hesitant steps toward the stairs that led down into the cargo hold. She had no more than touched the toe of her boot to the surface of the first step before luminescent bolts of energy flew from the pool, leaving reverse ripples in their wake and exploding as they impacted cargo and walls alike.

Despite herself, Inara shrieked, jerking back until she had stumbled into the bulkhead, her hand searching blindly for the latch to her shuttle. Hot on the tail of the first energy shots a darkly clad soldier flew out of the puddle, neither wet nor swimming. The tilt of the metal ring caused him to stumble as he hit the cargo hold floor and he rolled violently, impacting against a pile of leafy greens that had spilled out of a half-vaporized crate.

Fast on his heels three more soldiers ejected from the pool, all of them apparently from the same military group, and all of them tripping clumsily as they came, crashing into food stuffs and charred remains of shipping crate.

Two more bolts, likely from an energy weapon, followed them out, impacting harmlessly against a large metal box that had managed to escape the destructive wave. Then with a gather and a snap the puddle disappeared.

Inara, barely breathing, held very, very still, her eyes captivated by the four uniformed bodies below her in the hold. For the longest time they did not move either. Nor did the ring produce another killer tidal wave.

"Carter!" A growl of irritation and anger rose from the hold floor.

Inara remained frozen, waiting to see if they would move. If they were speaking, surely they couldn't be dead, but they could still be hostile and she had left her dagger in the shuttle.

"Teal'c. Daniel!" The same voice growled more words. They sounded like names.

"Well…this is better…sorta." Said another voice, this one male as well. "At least we aren't being shot at anymore."

"DanielJackson. Are you injured?" Asked a third voice, this one male and deeper than the other two.

"No I...um…landed in lettuce..I think."

"Lettuce?" This had to be the fourth soldier but Inara easily recognized the female timbre of the voice.

"Would you like some dressing?" The first voice asked sarcastically and below her all four of the soldiers were pulling themselves to their feet.

"What the…" The female began, her head craning back and forth to take in the hold and the path of destruction cut through the middle of it.

"Daniel?"

"Um…" The shortest of the males responded, uncertainly, and the one wearing the cap with only a short brim finished his question.

"I thought I said, 'Dial home.'"

Chapter 2

Colonel Jack O'Neill turned in a full circle, one hand latched onto the P-90 strapped to his chest waiting for one of the two doctors of SG-1 to answer him.

"Uh…I did." Daniel answered, a bit of petulance coloring the last word of the sentence. "Or…I tried up until…"

"What?" Jack snapped, focusing on the muttering archeologist fiercely. Around him Teal'c and Captain Samantha Carter were also eyeing Daniel, though not as angrily.

"The thing snapped off…" Daniel protested, his hand jabbing out briefly into space at about the height and distance that the DHD had been from him when he was dialing. "The key or whatever it was with the second to last symbol was…"

"Snapped…off?" Jack enunciated.

"Blown…to smithereens. I had to pick two more and just…"

Silence followed allowing Jack's face to morph from a look of irritation to deathly stillness.

"Daniel.." Carter's voice reflected the look on O'Neill's face. "You just…picked two more symbols…at random?"

"We were being shot at…"

"That is not unusual DanielJackson…"

"By our allies?"

Teal'c raised a brow in response and Jack rolled his eyes turning away from the group. The gate still stood behind them, propped up and barely fitting into the enormous room they had gated into. A storage facility, maybe, given all the crates of fruit and…things.

He turned a full circle before confirming the nagging doubt and fear that had been floating in the back of his head, along with an infant headache about to burst into adolescence.

"Alright, I don't see a DHD just yet."

Carter, Daniel and Teal'c followed his example stepping out of the unconscious cluster they had formed to more thoroughly examine the well lit room.

"It doesn't look like their Stargate is operational….I mean it looks like it's been stored away along with…their…" Carter shrugged at the spilled box of leafy greens while Daniel supplied, "Salad."

Both geeks shrugged and Jack sighed, preparing to say something sarcastic.

The metal hatch directly opposite the gate opened before he got the chance and a tall, very well armed and surprised Jayne stepped into the hold pointing his largest gun at the group of equally as armed strangers.

"What the hell…?" Jayne started, staring at the mess.

"They came through the ring…" Inara finally managed staggering forward on the catwalk and pointing desperately at the giant metal device. Jack and Sam altered the aim of their weapons and their stances enough to include both the woman above and the armed man below.

"Um…" Daniel started, desperately grasping at every diplomatic straw available in the bale.

"How did you get on board?" Jayne creaked, his gun held higher so that he could sight down the barrel. The muzzle kept sliding towards the biggest and scariest of the four, sights landing squarely on the gold symbol attached to his forehead.

"On board?" Carter stuttered.

"We're on a…uh…a ship?" Daniel ventured, his hands gesturing wildly where his words failed.

"H'yeah." Jayne shifted his attention briefly to the woman that he now recognized as being such. "And it's in space…you couldn't have snuck on…"

Above them Inara rolled her eyes and said again, "They came through the ring."

"The what? The ri-…" For the first time since he had entered the hold Jayne's brain managed to register the thing that took up the most space in the cargo hold and his eyes dilated to the size of saucers.

As a result the muzzle of his gun sank and Teal'c and Jack rushed at the…space cowboy….Teal'c wielding his staff and Jack reaching for his zat.

Inara watched the instantaneous attack and lurched for the stairs shouting a warning at Jayne that came just a little too late.

Blue lightning shot from the nose of the Zat-gun in Jack's hand and Jayne convulsed violently before he was pitched to the floor.

"Hold it right there, Lady." Jack warned his attention shifting swiftly from the unconscious, non-threat on the floor to the potential threat on the stairs. Without being ordered Captain Carter was already moving towards where the pile of goods blocked the landing of the stair case, her gun aimed cautiously at the exotically dressed woman.

"T. Watch the door." Jack ordered.

"Jack…!" Daniel warned, simultaneously, his voice growing louder in volume and drawing O'Neill's attention back to the catwalk above where another…space cowboy…stood above them, feet spread and gun aimed. Beside him stood a woman who looked just as military as Carter but with much tighter fitting clothing on. She too aimed a weapon at them. Neither of them appeared to be amused.

For a breath or two the disparate groups stood, tense and at something of a stalemate. Finally Jack came up with a snappy piece of repartee and with expertly wielded sarcasm asked, "Should we lower our weapons?"

Mal took a deep breath in through his nose and canted his head to the side. "That would be good."

Jack took a moment to consider then shrugged and let the aim of his weapon drop to a more neutral target. Around him his team did the same, exchanging glances.

"Daniel." Jack said, his tone odd given the situation, but not really odd given who was using it. "_No _more prank calling allowed…" The colonel scolded, then unsnapped the buckle that kept the p-90 strapped to his chest and carefully set the weapon down on the metal floor of the hold.


	2. Always Comes in Threes

Chapter 3

Captain Mal Reynolds' grip was confident and relaxed against the rough metal of his weapon. The curve and weight of the piece was easily familiar to him, as it had been all through the wars. He kept his trigger finger off the thin strip of metal, but close by it, ready if need be to respond to any hostile act by the hijackers that had invaded Serenity.

"Shiny…" He said quietly when all of the weapons were finally on the cargo hold floor and out of reach. "Jayne?" He called, not taking his eyes from the face of what had to be the leader.

The soldier looked slightly older than Mal did, with gray at his temples, but eyes that were just as calm as Mal's grip. Mal could read that both were soldiers and both had seen hard times and made foolish decisions that cost lives in the past.

"He should be fine…unless of course he needs counseling…" The leader responded, brown eyes flickering down to where Jayne still lay, then back up. "We've put down our guns…in good faith. Why not lower yours a little?"

"What's goin' on?"

Behind Mal, Kaylee poked her head through the upper hatchway, her eyes wide, waiting for an answer.

"Back to the engine room, Kaylee. Get us movin'." Mal ordered, keeping his attention on the four soldiers below. "Who are you folk?"

For a second all the hijackers did was look at each other, the leader to the woman, the woman to the leader and the tall, dark one, and finally all eyes settled on the shortest one.

"We're…" The man started, moving a hand to shift the glasses settled on the bridge of his nose. "We're peaceful explorers…if you can believe that." He said, a quirky smile following the statement then dissappearing. "And being here is something of a mistake."

"Augh…I'll say." Groaned Jayne, shifting his arms and legs a bit before he thought he could roll onto his hands and knees. As it turned out moving at all was a bad idea. Immediately his head began to pound and he groaned again settling back against the cool floor.

"Jayne? You gonna cover these?" Mal called down.

"Cover the floor…with my vomit." Jayne muttered as loud as he dare.

"Look, we don't mean you any harm. We were under fire and…" The leader paused to look at the one wearing spectacles then back. "Daniel here had no option other than to dial up your 'gate. We'd be just as happy to leave except that you seem not to have all the necessary…parts."

"Parts?" Kaylee asked, sounding more interested, and less like she was working on the engine, than Mal wanted. "Parts for what? The big circle?"

The leader of the hijackers craned his neck while remaining routed to the spot, searching for the owner of the new voice coming from the catwalk. "We call it a Stargate…Chapa'ii?"

"It requires a second component, a uh…pedestal about this high with symbols on it, and a large red..button, I guess, in the middle." Spoke the woman of the group, her voice just as calm and confident as the leader's.

To Mal's ears none of them sounded panicked, or necessarily crafty or malicious. And they had been the first to offer a truce by putting their guns down. If he'd read the soldier in the leader correctly he knew that the officer wouldn't surrender his weapon in the midst of a hostile take over. He dropped the muzzle of his gun an inch or two.

"We got nothin' like that. Just this cargo…that's half-gone now. And that big metal thing."

"Stargate…"

"Don't matter what it's called."

Below him the leader shrugged and said nothing.

"I don't see as how it's much use to us," Mal continued. "Why don't we drop you back on planet-side with it. You can go or stay as you like."

Again the strangers seemed to converse silently with their eyes and Mal wondered if maybe they weren't a species that could read thoughts. Like River seemed to. Could they have been super-smart criminals that escaped from a prison facility like Simon had with his sister?

"Zoe, get down to where Jayne is and get him on his feet. No time to be layin' about. And Kaylee…"

"I'm goin', Cap. I'm goin'!" Kaylee protested starting to walk back down the passage to the engine room.

"No, wait. Get the Doc up here first."

Kaylee eyeballed Mal, suspicion and concern warring behind her gaze before she nodded and disappeared into the bowels of the ship.

"Sir, that may be our best option. If the Stargate does belong with this planet the DHD may be on the surface."

"And if it's not?" Jack asked in a hushed tone.

Daniel leaned towards both airforce officers and winced. "Do we really have a choice? Obviously we've thrown these people for a loop…they seem to have no idea what the gate is, or any knowledge of the Goa'uld. I mean…they look like…smugglers."

"I do not believe so, DanielJackson. At least not…entirely."

"The point is we are dealing with a situation and a people that know nothing about what they have propped up in their cargo hold." Daniel waved at the gate as he finished, then at the destruction around it. "Obviously by gating in we've done some damage, albeit unintentionally-"

Jack yanked his cap off by the bill and asked, "Daniel, what's your point?"

"If we offer them something, something that requires keeping the gate _and us_ on board we may buy some time, maybe time enough to find another planet with a gate, a DHD…"

"An alternate power source.." Sam offered, nodding already to Daniel's suggestion.

"Okay, what then? Free passes to Disneyland?"

"Food.." Daniel suggested.

"From where?"

"Or weapons…" Daniel countered.

"Obviously they don't need those." The colonel flipped a hand toward the armed man on the catwalk then let his gaze flicker to the armed woman coming through the hatch on their level. She seemed more interested in the downed man than his team and O'Neill's attention was quickly drawn back to Carter.

"Gate travel."

"Would they not feel that gate travel is superfluous to the hyperspace travel they already possess?" Teal'c asked.

Jack nodded his agreement with the Jaffa and added, "It'll be hard to convince them that we can work the gate after telling them we're missing parts already."

"But sir we could-"

A loud thud cut off Carter's protest. The floor of the cargo hold rocked in the same moment, tossing all of them off balance.

A male voice shouted over the intercom seconds after the first thud, and to the beat of more impacts, stated the obvious. "We're under attack!"

The female soldier and her companion on the hold level, having just managed to rise to their feet reacted to the warning by pointing their guns at SG-1 once more.

Jack stepped forward automatically, trying to shield his command from any nervous trigger fingers, and threw up his hands. Sam and Daniel followed suit, spreading their legs to compensate for the pitching of the deck after each impact.

A second announcement broke in a brief lull that turned both smugglers whole shades lighter.

"Reavers! We got Reavers on our tail!"


End file.
